Introduction
The term Holocaust is widely taken to refer to the extermination
of the European Jews by the Nazis. Once the nature and scale of the
event became known, we all cried out Never Again. This cry expresses
all humanity’s pessimism and optimism: the infinite dread that it
will be repeated and the determination to stand in its way.
On the one hand, since the event that gave the phenomenon its name,
our understanding has altered: we have come to realise that this
was not unique in 20th Century history and that Jews were not its
only victims. We have also come to realise that events of this nature
are going to happen again and again, in one form or another. Everything
surrounding the Holocaust is steeped in pessimism.
Yet to survive, to fight and to resist implies the deployment of
optimism in equal measure. Every act of genocide calls forth our
cries of protest against it. Our outrage is inexhaustible. Our sympathy
goes out to those who resist. Our anger pursues the perpetrators
beyond the grave.
Caught between hope and dread, we set out our fears, re-presenting
them to our selves. Representation is sharing, and the way that sharing
evolves is a function of time and technology. If, since the end of
World War II, the industrialisation of killing has been outstripped
by the industrialisation of life, there is every reason to expect
that it will soon catch up. Yet, by a perverse quirk of the law of
combined and uneven development, even if the killing is not always
industrialised, it is increasingly mediatised.
Keeping step with our understanding and needs, forms of representation
of the Holocaust have been evolving since the very first escape from
Auschwitz. They continue to evolve and will only stop if humanity
feels it no longer has any interest in investing time and effort
in such projects.
The Electronic Forum for the Study of the Holocaust is a site devoted
to the study of issues around the Jewish Holocaust and other genocides
perpetrated since the beginning of the 20th Century. It is multi-disciplinary
and welcomes contributions from academics, students and researchers
in all fields of investigation and representation: fiction and art
in all its forms, historiography, memoir and analysis. It aims to
bring together in one forum all forms of study and expression and
evolve into a versatile tool fro the study of the Holocaust. It seeks,
especially, to become a forum for discussion and to bring together
all those who have an interest in the subject.
|